RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Books/Article.aspx?id=246804&prmusr=Mp6NOhuVKb93PLNR06QJ92IpspwIXBsCF0CyMblcJ2DzJmw89TtxodGaMAzTOnKQ
Gertrude Himmelfarb’s new volume about ‘another aspect of Jewish experience’ in England counters the endless tomes documenting the philosophy of the country’s anti-Semites.Statue of Winston Churchill.

Jews who find a steady diet of books about the anti-Semitism of England’s learned classes more unpleasant than exploratory surgery will find a welcome antidote in Gertrude Himmelfarb’s scintillating and (mostly) optimistic historical essay, The People of the Book, about the counter-tradition she calls English “philosemitism.”

But that term, like “People of the Book” and “anti-Semitism,” is steeped in ambiguity, tainted in its origin and generally applied anachronistically.

The term “People of the Book” originated with Muhammad, and in the Koran, refers to Jews and Christians. It has pejorative overtones, as in “People of the Book! Why reject ye the Signs of Allah.”

Similarly “philosemitism” was originally pejorative; it was invented, like its opposite, anti-Semitism, by German Jewhaters.

They used it to disparage people they deemed “soft on the Jews.”

The term “anti-Semitism” itself was a pseudo-scientific euphemism for old-fashioned Jew-hatred, and is still invoked by devotees of the Arab cause: “How can I be called an anti-semite [spelled thus] when I support the Semites called Arabs?” The answer is that anti-Semites don’t hate “Semites”; they hate Jews.

Himmelfarb, without denying either the pioneering role of England’s anti- Semites (the inventors of the blood libel, the first to expel their country’s Jewish population) or their recent resurgence, tries to balance it with “another aspect of Jewish experience – the respect, even reverence, for Jews and Judaism displayed by non-Jews before and after the Holocaust.”

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/1977/The-View-from-the-Tower.aspx

If I were a psychiatrist I could find the perfect label for the depths of denial or the heights of delusion that manifest themselves in Frederick and Kimberly Kagan’s latest declarations on Iraq published in the Washington Post as “opinion.” “Fantasy” is a more like it. Their premise is that the American nation-building exercise in Iraq failed not because nation-building is pure academic utopianism (leftist cant) that withers in real-world conditions (Islam), but because the exercise didn’t go on long enough.

They pre-emptively score Prez Obama for the happy talk that’s the predictable outcome of his meeting today with Iraq’s Maliki. Fair enough. The image of Iraq he is sure to present, they write, “is a mirage.” But if we’re talking about disconnection from reality, the Kagans have once again pulled their own plug.

They write:

Even after the last U.S. soldier departs, America’s core interests in Iraq include:

●Ensuring that Iraq contributes to the security of the Middle East, rather than undermining it through state collapse, civil war or the establishment of a sectarian dictatorship;

●Ensuring that terrorist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda or backed by Iran cannot establish sanctuaries;

●Promoting an Iraq that abides by its international responsibilities;

●Containing Iranian influences that are harmful to U.S. interests in Iraq and the region; and

●Signaling U.S. commitment to the region at a pivotal moment in history.

http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2011/12/gingrichs-fresh-hope.php
Last Friday, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, did something revolutionary. He told the truth about the Palestinians. In an interview with The Jewish Channel, Gingrich said that the Palestinians are an “invented” people, “who are in fact Arabs.”

His statement about the Palestinians was entirely accurate. At the end of 1920, the “Palestinian people” was artificially carved out of the Arab population of “Greater Syria.” “Greater Syria” included present-day Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan. That is, the Palestinian people were invented 91 years ago. Moreover, as Gingrich noted, the term “Palestinian people” only became widely accepted after 1977.

As Daniel Pipes chronicled in a 1989 article on the subject in The Middle East Quarterly, the local Arabs in what became Israel opted for a local nationalistic “Palestinian” identity in part due to their sense that their brethren in Syria were not sufficiently committed to the eradication of Zionism.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/10975

For years, I have risked scorn, defamation, and even physical menace for telling the truth about the “Palestinian” Lie.

Although the “Palestinians” claim a sacred national identity with roots in the Holy Land, the truth is that no such people or group ever existed historically. (Yes, I know that now, given the enormous propaganda and funding for terrorism that there is, indeed, a group of people who call themselves “Palestinians” and who are viewed as such by the immediate world.)

My point is that this group has no historical roots. That is my only point. And, given the enormous disinformation on this subject, I believe it is an important point.

For many millennia, the entire Middle East was only pagan, Jewish, Roman, Greek, and Christian. Islam itself only arose in the 7th century CE and Muslims thereafter conquered and colonized the Middle East and central Asia. Islamic genocide, imperialism, colonialism, forced conversions, slavery, anti-black racism, and both gender and religious apartheid characterized the Arab Muslim “takeover” of the region.

http://nationalconferenceonjewishaffairs.org/

NCJA STATEMENT AFFIRMS HISTORICAL TRUTH EXPRESSED BY SPEAKER GINGRICH
For Immediate Release
Contact: NCJA Press (212) 726-1124 natlconference@gmail.com

The National Conference on Jewish Affairs is pleased that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich affirmed what many have historically known, which is that there never was an indigenous Arab “Palestinian” people, race, or religion with their own language, flag, distinct culture, history, or national identity. There were a few pockets of Arabs scattered in the area that were in no way distinct in national character from any of their fellow Arabs among the population of Middle East. Indeed, the term “Palestinian” was used to refer to Jews since Roman times living in that territory. Yassir Arafat and other collaborators co-opted and politicized the term “Palestinian” to refer to the collection of various Arab individuals whom Arab leaders forcibly congregated in settlements so as to create a visible presence for the purpose of making claims on territory belonging historically and legally to the Jewish People.

In a bold move, Israel’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Danny Ayalon, appealed to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) meeting in Geneva this week to end the UN’s decades-old support for the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA).

A video presenting Israel’s new position on the issue assumes PM Netanyahu’s approval.

Despite widespread criticism of UNRWA, however, it’s doubtful that efforts to reform the agency or eliminate it will be successful.

Ironically, one of the main obstacles is the Israeli government — especially the Ministry of Defense and some in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — which continue to support it.

Moreover, the US State Department opposes any changes. All fear an explosion of violence that would result. Rather than deal with the issue creatively and realistically, most would rather avoid it, pass it on and hope it will go away, thus compounding the problem.

And as long as UNRWA exists the issue of Palestinian refugees cannot be resolved and will continue to sabotage efforts towards peace.

http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p18881.xml

We have been hearing a lot about the Muslim Brotherhood lately – and none of it is good news. Get used to it. With the Brotherhood’s ascendancy in the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey and beyond, the world is going to be subjected to a crash course in Islamist supremacism – and what it means for the rest of us.

We were on notice even before the Egyptian elections in which the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and their allies secured upwards of sixty percent of the votes in that country’s new, post-Mubarak parliament – and the murderous violence towards Coptic Christians that preceded them. A reminder came on December 7th when a three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed convictions ofleaders of the MB-associated Holy Land Foundation. The earlier trial in 2008 did much to expose the totalitarian, supremacist nature and seditious objectives of that group, elsewhere and here in the United States.

http://bit.ly/up8bJm Contrary to political correctness, Palestinian Arabs have not been in the area west of the Jordan River from time immemorial; no Palestinian state ever existed, no Palestinian People was ever robbed of its land and there is no basis for the Palestinian “claim of return.” Most Palestinian Arabs are descendants of the 1845-1947 Muslim […]

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/12/12/why-is-newt-still-rising After Saturday night’s Iowa debate, I’d bet $10,000 that Mitt Romney has sunk himself. Well, I might if I had an extra $10,000 lying around, which I don’t. But after that debate, and more than a week of relentless attacks on him, why is Newt Gingrich still rising and Romney still sinking? Gingrich’s staying […]

An Invented People Posted By David Meir-Levi

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/13/an-invented-people/print/

On Friday, December 9, presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich was interviewed on cable TV’s The Jewish Channel, where he made the unexpected comment that the Palestinians are an invented people with no apparent right to their own state. His remarks, summarized in the Washington Post, were promptly condemned; but is he correct?

Let’s recall that Mr. Gingrich has an MA and PhD in History from Tulane University. In fact, history is quite clear on this issue. Mr. Gingrich is correct, and the first to say so was Daniel Pipes.

The name “Palestine” derives from the Philistines, who originated from the Eastern Mediterranean (perhaps Greece or Crete) and invaded the region in the eleventh and twelfth centuries B.C. Related to the Bronze Age Greeks, they spoke a language akin to Mycenaean Greek. Their area of habitation on the Eastern Mediterranean littoral became known as “Philistia.”

When Romans arrived a thousand years later they corrupted “Philistia” to “Palestina,” from whence “Palestine.” Six hundred years later, the Arab invaders corrupted “Palestina” to “Falastin.”

Throughout all subsequent history there was never a nation of “Palestine,” never a people known as the “Palestinians,” nor any notion of “historic Palestine.” The region remained under successive foreign rulers, from the Umayyads and Abbasids and Ayyubids to the Fatimids, Ottomans and British. During these millennia the term “Falastin” referred to an undefined geographical region, much like “Appalachia” or “the great Southwest” in modern U.S. geography.